The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1887-05-11
Johns Country Customers.

John Harvey had been clerk in a
country store in Vermont since he was
fifteen years old, and he was now
twenty. He had been reared and edu-
Gated by his mother, who was no longer
very young when John was born, and
consequently entering upon the infirmi-
ties of old age when her boy had ar
rived at the years of manhood. Her
! husband was long since dead.
John was a handsome country lad,
active, oblging and courteous. These
qualities attracted the attention of
| New York merchant who was spend
ing summer month in Vermont, and
he offered him situation in his store.
Although Johns mother knew how
more than lonely she would be without
her boy, she felt how valuable this
chance would prove to him, and so gave
her consent to his going.
" know my boy will not forget his
MOTHER" she said. "And one thing,
my child" she added, &C let me impress
upon you. You will be surrounded by
giddy fellow-clerks, many who will look
with contempt upon humbly-clad peo-
pie who come to buy and only serve
them with reluctance-perhaps rude
ness. Never forget your mother and
that the humblest woman may be some
body's dear old mother. And remem-
Der, too, what you have many times
read in the school reader, that APP
pearances are often deceiving, and that
a well-filled purse may lie in the pocket
of rusty coat"
That was the mothers advice and it
turned out that John needed it, The
great, iron dry-goods shop in Broad
| NIT al,
counters inside heaped high with
marvelously beautiful fabrics, was in
deed change to John, and the richly
and astonishingly dressed women in
great contrast to the country danes in
sun-bonnets and Bingham gowns that
he had been accustomed to serve. But
now and then came customers from the
country; there was no installing them.
Their dresses had homemade look
and their bonnets utterly lacked the
peculiar audacity of city hats. They
preferred their requests in timid way,
as if feeling lost and strange, and un-
certain if they had any business in so
grand shop; the clerks snubbed them
or were insoent. But to John the
country faces were always pleasant and
he was invariably so noticeably kind to
rural customers that his counter very
soon became the center of country Gus
tom. His fellow-clerks would sing out,
when there was an appearance of
"country cousins" Customers for
you, Harvey" or, "Here come some
of Harvey's friends"
But one day the country women
missed the Every obliging clerk" and
upon inquiry were told that he had
been transferred to the cloak depart
ment Very well! One old lady who
had young girl with her said she
wanted to buy cloak. So upstairs
they went-a quaint looking pair that
set the clerks in a giggle, and they
silly winked and blnked at each other
as they sent round the password:
g Harvey's friends" "Good luck to
you, Harvey" laughed one. "Now's
your chance to get rid of those last
years beaver sacques! May be they
will 90 as high as ten dollars"
But if the old lady and her niece had
been dowager and princess they could
not have been more courteously treated
than they were by John. "She is
some body's dear old mother, I'll war;
rant" he said to himself, and then, in
pleasant manner, asked her what she
would like to see.
Velvet cloaks.n she replied.
John took from the hooks of the
wardrobes cloaks varying in price from
fifty to three hundred dollars. The
clerks kept up their fun at Johns eX-
pense, but he did not care. After con-
siderable delay in making up her mind,
the old lady said she wanted some furs
and would like to see how such and
such furs would look over a velvet
cloak valued at two hundred fifty dol
lars. John readily gratitied her with
dressing up lay figure with the cloak
and four hundred dollar set of furs.
After little his customer said they
suited her, and asked how much all
would be. John made feint at count
ing up the figures, and said $3.50.
Very well; l will take them," she
said, and drawing rusty-looking
pocket-book from her petticoat pro-
ceeded to count out the money. AS the
bills were mostly fives and tens, they
made noble pile, and as John took
them from her hand he held them pur-
posely so as to eXaggerate their appear
ance and skipped around among the
clerks with great gusto.
Nearly 500 from my rooral
friends )" he eXulted. "No last year
beavers for them, if you please; and the
girl is as sweet as the roses and pinks
in my mothers garden"
That days sale was the making of
: John Harvey. 1t gave him an impor-
lance in the eyes of his employers, who
increased his salary and placed him at
the head of the department. Two
years later he wooed and won the girl
"sweet as the pinks and roses" who
brought him, beside her sweetness and
beauty, snug little fortune which
seemed all the better from having been
accumulated where the pinks and roses
bloom. He then returned to Vermont
to remain with his mother during her
declining years-not as clerk in the
old country store, but as its owner and
proprietor, and which is to-day, because
of its neatness, tasteful ordering and
abundant furnishing, noted the country
round as the best store in the state"
The villagers, too, like Johns wife be-
cause of her sweet and simple ways;
and it was her aunt-the old lady her.
self-who told me the story of Johns
good fortune, which all grew out of